[h3]Below Rebirth's Rise, Eastern outskirts of Yharnam[/h3]
“Thanks,” Torquil said awkwardly as he accepted the offered blood vials and transferred them to his own satchel, though he was rather distracted by watching the Shopkeeper dominating the Hunter that he and Farren had only barely managed to fend off with their combined efforts. Despite having been hit by Skinner's lightning-waves twice now, Torquil was surprisingly fine; lightly singed, that was all. Any actual damage he had taken had obviously regenerated immediately after taking it, but even his clothes only had faint traces of something that would suggest that he had been subjected to anything dangerous. Blocking with the Loch Shield had absorbed most of the damage he would have taken, which was a pleasant surprise.
This was also the first time Ophelia saw Torquil and Farren outside the Hunter's Dream since obtaining and memorizing the Guidance Rune, and so the first time she had a chance to notice that, even here in the Waking World, each of them had one or two little guidance sprites hovering around them. Much more noticeably, however, the Shopkeeper was surrounded by an entire swarm of them; what looked to be dozens, if not hundreds of little motes of moonlight swirling around their form.

A bit down the street Farren took up his position on top of Skinner, holding him down, threatening him and glared at him wordlessly. Skinner met his gaze with one filled with desperation, but made no attempt at breaking free or attacking.
“Why?!” he whined pathetically. “I've told – [I]NO![/I]”
But before Skinner or Farren could say or do anything else, the Shopkeeper stepped around and past Farren, only to raise their arms over their head. A blue flash announced the summoning of another weapon: a Kirkhammer. And with tremendous force, the massive stone-head of the hammer fell directly onto Skinner's head with a horrible wet noise.
Skinner's body tensed up for a second, a series of random spasms going through his muscles, before going limp. His left arm shrank back down to a normal size and lost its claws, and he shed not only the fur that had grown on him, but surprisingly a lot of his bulk, until his huge, muscular frame came to look thin and emaciated instead. And as the Shopkeeper dismissed their Kirkhammer with another flash of light, Farren could confirm that Skinner's head was now a messy smear on the cobblestone.

[color=Silver]Farren has obtained the Hunger Caryll Rune. While branded onto a Hunter's mind, devouring the flesh of a living or recently deceased creature restores regenerative potential, similar to how a blood vial would have. Additionally, after devouring part of a creature you gain a small measure of its power as long as you are near it or its remains. If used in conjunction with a living weapon, this rune allows that weapon to have a second awakening that lasts for 60 seconds, at the cost of permanently erasing the last currently active benefit from an eaten creature.[/color]